Twisted Veil
by Grasspaw
Summary: AU: Jackie's lips were cold and blue and she wasn't breathing, and this was not how Aster had imagined their first kiss.


**So I saw RotG about two weeks ago and have been fangirling like a crazy thing since then. I've started about fifty fanfictions and have ideas for a hundred others, but I'm kind of notorious for not finishing anything that I start... Which basically means that the first thing I publish is _this._ Human, fem!Jack/Bunny AU. I was actually writing a whole story about it, with this scene as the dramatic climax or something. And then, ya know, they realize their feelings for each other and get married and live happily ever after until I write a sequel and blow things up. So, um, yeah. I own nothing.**

Jackie's lips were cold and blue and she wasn't _breathing_, and this was not how Aster had imagined their first kiss.

He'd been walking through the forest, following a lesser-trod path that wound throughout the dead trees, when he heard someone screaming. He had run immediately in that direction, the knife appearing in his hand almost of its own volition, and burst through the trees, looking around wildly. He knew that scream, even though he had never heard it before. Jackie's voice had a very distinct quality to it, and he recognized that, filled with terror as it was.

But the thing that made his blood run cold was that the scream was cut off. Then there were the shrieking sobs of a young boy, and Aster looked at the scene in horror.

A crack in the ice. A boy on the edge of the frozen lake on his hands and knees. Jackie's staff lying discarded next to him.

And no Jackie.

The boy was screaming desperately at the hole. "Come back! Jackie, Jackie, come back!"

"What happened?" Aster shouted hoarsely, shoving his knife back into his pocket when he saw there was no need for it and running to the boy. Jamie, he realized. The child Jackie said she was babysitting that day.

"She fell," Jamie sobbed. "She pulled me away and she _fell_."

Aster was pulling his phone and knives out of his pockets before Jamie had finished two words. "Here," he snapped. "Dial 9-1-1 and hit the green button."

Without another word, he was sprinting across the ice. He heard it cracking beneath him, but he didn't give himself time enough to think before he was jumping and diving into the hole.

The shock of hitting the icy water nearly incapacitated him, and he couldn't move for several precious seconds. Finally, though, he kicked his legs decisively and shot downwards. He felt sluggish and slow, and he could barely see anything in the dark, but he knew that Jackie would likely sink straight to the bottom. If he could just reach her...

His hand closed on a wrist. His heart leaped - even as his lungs burned - and he twited in the water. Jackie was dead weight, but he was pure adrenaline, and he broke the surface several moments later, gasping and treading water. He managed to sling Jackie onto his back as he clawed desperately at the ice, trying to get a grip, and by some miracle he pulled the two of them out. He was gasping and shaking and barely able to move, simply laying half on the ice with his legs in the water. Very distantly he could hear Jamie's voice.

"He just came out, he's got Jackie, but she's not _moving_, she looks dead, oh my gosh, I think she's dead-"

The words jolted Aster back to reality, and he dragged the two of them forward before rolling over and depositing Jackie on the ice on her back. Her white hair lay all over her face like some sort of twisted veil, and he brushed it away impatiently. He could barely catch his breath, but Jackie wasn't breathing at all - and if he was honest with himself, he rated her life as far more valuable than his, anyways.

He pushed himself up to his knees and bent over her, and the wind whipped cruelly at them. He had dressed warmly, but sopping wet as his coat and scarf were, they were doing more harm they good. He pinched Jackie's nose shut, tilted her head back, pressed his lips against hers, and exhaled shakily into her mouth.

_Breathe_, he begged her silently. _Don't give out on me. Breath._

He sat up and pounded on her chest, falling into the practiced movements he had learned so many years ago. A few moments later he returned to mouth to mouth, forcing air into her waterlogged lungs. And it was then that the most absurd, ridiculous thought occurred to him.

_This is our first kiss._

He would later chalk it up to exhaustion and cold and shock and whatever else he was experiencing at that moment, because this wasn't really any sort of kiss at all. Because Jackie's lips were cold and blue and she wasn't _breathing_, and this was not how Aster had imagined their first kiss.

Not that he had ever done so, really.

He nearly cried with relief when Jackie started coughing, and she rolled over onto her side, vomiting up half-frozen pond water and gasping, and Jamie was cheering and then out of nowhere there were paramedics and warm drinks and blankets and he was just so tired...

Hours later, when he finally awoke and was able to visit Jackie, he was filled with a strange desire to have another go at that kiss.


End file.
